


Red Sky at Morning

by toujours_nigel



Series: girl!Boromir AU [1]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, F/M, Rule 63, cis swap, girl!Boromir
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-21
Updated: 2015-05-21
Packaged: 2018-03-31 14:21:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3981316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toujours_nigel/pseuds/toujours_nigel





	Red Sky at Morning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [filia_noctis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/filia_noctis/gifts).



Berenel the Fair, her father’s red right hand. She rides down to Imladris through the pass of Rohan, but tarries first a while at Edoras to take joy in the company of the horse-lords before she rides out alone, and after, Grima whispers to Eowyn that she might yet have been a woman and free but that she was born in Rohan. No man stops Berenel, whose sword is an extension of her arm and whose horn is a joyous call to battle.

She rides down to Imladris with the dream in her mind making it reek of terror, for the long nights wandering forgotten roads have been empty of news of her father, of her brother who is the lonely hope of his ancient house, and she is too much a soldier and the daughter of princes for broken swords to bring her aught but unease. Nor has she much faith in the line of Isildur or in the counsel of elves. But that the need of Gondor is great she would never have ridden forth, from the White City with the silver trumpets calling and the people thronged about to bid her joy and luck and a quick return.

Down to Imladris, then, the half-forgotten home of elves. By the long road, skirting the great gloamings of Mirkwood and Lorien, through wildernesses where kings of stone look upon her with chill indifference and living men look upon her with warm lust. Berenel is fair, not as elves are with cold starlight, nor even as women are who are kept within the house, but as Haleth once was, and as some women yet are in the glades of Ithilien and among the riders of Rohan, bright and dangerous, lovely as a sword. She goes alone through the wilderness like quick fire, and is offered neither help nor dishonour, though Faramir wakes himself from nightmares wherein his sister screams for help and he turns his face away.

In Imladris a man who stops her heart. Not love, in whose pleasant paths she has tarried many summer with her cousins of Dol Amroth or the smiling prince of Rohan. Not love but something greater that presses heavy hands to her shoulders and nearly forces her to her knees to do homage so she fights to grasp instead at insolence and watches him still as a hunter in ambush watching her prey draw ever closer. The heir of Isildur, a Ranger of the North. If he had not been her King she would still go to death for him as easily as for tender Faramir whom she has so ill protected from the ravages of war and the heavy yoke of their father’s love. Aragorn, she says into the still night. Aragorn son of Arathorn, my king out of the wilds. A name out of stories, and a well-remembered face.

Shameless as a courting young page she goes to him, upon the morrow before all are yet awoken, past the elf maiden who is conversing with him, graceful as a young tree, as the White Tree of her childhood before age and ill use hollowed it. “You were called Thorongil once,” she says, “and in the White City you served Ecthelion as a captain of his guard, and in the spring you went down to Dol Amroth to bring my father his bride, and in the summer some years hence you sat me upon your great horse and rode along the streets with me till I laughed again. You did not tarry to see my brother born, nor my mother buried.” 

“I was called away,” he says. “I did not think you would remember. You were a child.” His hands reach out and ghost over her shoulders, over her face and shorn hair, and his smile is still as it ever was. “Come, you must meet my lady. Arwen Undomiel, the Even Star of her people.”

* * *

  
The Halflings are as children. Bright and sweet and wary. Full of laughter and of stories, and of the blind bravery of childhood. Berenel despairs of them, but they are quick to learn, and light of foot and eye, and she has whipped worse recruits into fine soldiers in her years as Captain. She sets them to work with staves, parrying blows from each other under Aragorn’s indulgent eye, and trades speaking glances with the Prince of Mirkwood until he gives over and fashions arrows to fit her bow. Small as it is it is near too long still for the Halflings to draw, but Merry has good eyes for targets as well as jokes and Sam has an archer’s stillness. To teach them eases her into the Company, for the other four are blooded in battles beyond the numbering of her years and among them she feels often callow and as young as the Maid of Rohan.

On the slopes of Caradhras terror, and in the deeps of Moria, pain.

Some dark thing shadows her, from the mines, and in the forests of Loth Lorien she feels fear greater than even in the shadows cast by the Nazgul. She is alone with it; in the others even great grief eases away in the magic of the woods, but for her all dreams are traps and she feels stripped, skinned, pulled down to flesh and flayed under the eyes of the Lady of Loth Lorien, Galadriel who came to Middle Earth with conquest on her mind and has remained where her brothers have not. Faramir, when young, had loved the lore of the First Age, and gentle Finduilas in whose veins ran elven blood had told her children many stories of her exalted kin. Gondor remembers much that is elsewhere forgotten, and Berenel feels only dread in this golden trap where a month slips by in long minutes.

On the Great River in their little boats the thought returns to her again, that it is folly to destroy such a great weapon when it has fallen to their hands. How many lives in Gondor could she save, wielding it? Frodo sits still and scared before her and through his hair in the glinting sunlight she can see the chain about his throat. Such a little thing to have such power. Such a little creature to hold such power close to its heart, unfaltering. And her city lies waiting for her, and her brother toils against great armies with too little strength left in him. Gondor will fall while they wander, and this creature, miserable and afraid, will take the Ring to its master. She drives it away from her mind, striving as she might with her sword and shield on the field of battle, but again it returns to her, and again, unbidden.

In the bright day when they rest, Aragorn comes to her. Since they left Lorien she has been awaiting it, longer. Since Gandal fell and the burden of leadership fell upon his shoulders. “You will not come with me to Minas Tirith, though she looks to you in her greatest need. You will go with Sauron’s Ring to lay it at his feet and increase his power a hundred-fold. He will come upon Gondor as an eagle upon a day-old lamb and slaughter us. And O King, it will be because you turned away from the White City.“ He does not speak, only takes her hands and bows above them. After a moment she says, “Think on it. At least come with me to Rohan, and there we can take counsel with Prince Theodred and with my brother, who will come swiftly from the marches of Ithilien if called. Come with me till Edoras, Thorongil, it is not too far out of your way. Then if you still desire Mordor we can part ways.”

On the next day there are Orcs and a great shadow such as she has seen but once before. Till they reach Parth Galen she bids her time and quiets her tongue. There is no place to speak out, and she will not try again with Aragorn. But when she speaks to Frodo he balks, skittish like a new colt or untried girl. She wants to catch him by the shoulders and shake him till he sees sense, to thrash him senseless, to make him understand, to make him see what folly is in his mind to go into Mordor bearing such a precious burden, how it will be of great use in Gondor, in the hands of her father, or in her hand. In her hand, for she is a better soldier than her father who is bowed down with age and she might take it and defend Gondor and rule it and keep it herself, such a little, precious thing and why might not she take it and be Queen of Gondor, set her throne in the highest tower of the White City.

The fall of blood is as consciousness come to her. 

* * *

  
She sounds her horn in a single long cry before it is cut out of her hands. She fights as she never before has, even in defence of Minas Tirith, even to recover Minas Ithil. She fights until her bow breaks, her shield breaks, her sword shatters. She draws the hunting knives from her belt and fights with those, slashing at exposed throats and snarling like a beast caught in a trap, like a warg at bay. They take the Halflings, bind them hand and foot, and it is sharp in her breast as though her children were being sent to slaughter. They strip her of her armour, feel her over carelessly for weapons, and bind her too, promising each other sport.

Grishnakh takes a liking to her. If asked she would have said less separated an ant from another than orc from orc, but she comes to know well the particular stench of him, the shadow he casts upon the ground. In the night when the riders come upon them she screams till her mouth is raw against the gag, beats the earth with her hands and bound feet, takes a knife from Grishnakh’s belt when he is distracted and slides it into his exposed side and twists upwards. He falls upon her after that and bound and gagged she is too weak to heave his body from hers. All night she comes to know his stench better.

The first she knows of being found is Grishnakh being hauled off her. Her eyes dazzle in the light and she labours to draw breath. Let it be any but one of the Uruk-Hai, she thinks, if the horsemen were from Rohan ever to the good, but even the Haradrim will only take her prisoner for ransom, and the hillsmen might choose to simply turn her loose. It is a long moment before she recognises Aragorn, looking at her with pain in his eyes. It is as a reflection cast in a silver mirror or the dark waters of the mirror-mere. She is crusted about with blood, her own and orcish, rend with wounds, her armour gone, her weapons gone, her breeches torn.

“I have failed you,” she says. “Frodo, I tried to take the Ring of power from him. And the young ones, Merry and Pippin, I could not save them. Are they dead?”

They are not dead. They are a marvel upon this earth, her Halflings, as resilient as children and as resourceful as old campaigners. They cut their bonds in the melee and made for Fangorn Forest. Aragorn’s eyes shine bright in speaking of them, and she laughs though it strains her bones.

“It is I who have failed,” he says, and looks as though he would take her hands but dare not. “Berenel, if I could have reached you sooner.”

“It is a wound like any other and only impedes riding. Have you brought my armour or did you leave it for the crows?”

With the weight of the mail scouring her shoulders she feels better able to stand his eyes, and those of his companions. Legolas Thranduilon looks at her as he does at all save Aragorn, like she is some strange mortal thing with which he chooses to amuse himself, but he inclines his head deeply and from Aragorn’s smile it means much. Gimli nods and pats gingerly at her and launches into a squabble about their continuing journey.

Nobody bids her walk. They have horses, though few in number for their company, and Aragorn holds her steady against his bulk as they ride. He smells of leather and tobacco and the strange shine of metal that all soldiers gain. From childhood to her it has been a comfort, from years of burying her face against her father’s shoulder, and some years too, of clinging to Thorongil in the labyrinth of Minas Tirith. She cannot see his face, but his thoughts run with hers. As they draw rein on the eaves of the great forest he says, low and private and for her ear alone, “I judge you no less than any man, but as a daughter you were to me, Berenel, for a little while.” Ah fathers, fathers, why can they spare no thought for how greatly their love wounds?

 


End file.
